


Angel of Death

by Afflitto



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Apocalypse, Hetalia, M/M, basically everyone you know and love dies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 09:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4429379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Afflitto/pseuds/Afflitto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Kink meme de-anon, Apocalyptic AU).  As the world succumbs to a deadly virus, the nations race against time to find a cure.  Canada carries the burden of Angel of Death and must aid the passing of his loved ones into the afterlife, as one by one they fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angel of Death

**Author's Note:**

> Kink Meme De-anon that I'm FINALLY getting around to continuing. it just might take me a bit to get going again. This story will be pretty heavy on PruCan friendship, but for the most part parings won't be a big portion of the storyline, considering the situation.
> 
> I invented a virus for the purposes of this fic. I might have taken some liberties with its mechanism, but it's inspired by viruses in the rhabdoviridae family. 
> 
> Sorry, Francis. :( I love you the most.

Francis was the first to die.  
  
“Matt, you can’t do anything for him—“ Alfred F. Jones stood hesitantly at the door, one foot in one foot out, dull eyes glancing at the electronic peaks shrieking against cold silence of the room.   
  
It wasn’t even a real hospital, and the heart monitor was probably unnecessary. Just an empty room with a cot shoved into a corner, not even a window to ease the heat of summer or draw out the stench of infection which hung heavy and sticky in the air. Francis lay still, pale as death though his chest heaved against a great weight and his breath rattled in his lungs. His muscles convulsed as if his nerves were wound too tight, his body pulling against the restraints in waves then collapsing again. Sweat beaded along greyed skin. Strings of hair clung to his neck and face.   
  
Matthew shook his head. As he swallowed, a knot hardened in his throat. His voice was near silent. “I won’t let him die alone.”   
  
Alfred’s fist tightened on the doorknob. It creaked a little as it shifted, but he did not close the door—did not make a move in either direction. “Matt, this is a BSL-4 level pathogen…just being in this room is—is suicidal—“  
  
Matthew only wrapped his hands around Francis’s with a sad little smile. “I know. And yet here you are too, warning me. You know as well as I that we don’t catch it the ‘normal’ way. It’s only when enough of our citizens succumb that we start to show the symptoms.” His sigh grated against the manufactured silence, the drone of Francis’s heartbeats shoved into the background as they stumbled over themselves as if through quicksand, slowing and then flat lining and then tremoring again. Once it had startled him; now it merely buzzed in the back of Matthew’s skull.  
  
“Maybe…maybe there’s still time…” Alfred breathed. His forehead rested against the edge of the door. Tears sparked in his eyes. “Maybe there’s…maybe we’re not chasing our own tails. All this work to find a vaccine to save those who are left. Someone’s got to make a break through. We just—we just need more time…”  
  
“The population of France has been decimated,” Matthew said. “Other countries in Europe aren’t far behind. You, me, and the rest of South America? We’re lucky to be on a separate continent, but the incubation period varies from days to even years. With the amount of air travel before we realized what was happening…Alfred, we’re not far behind. Maybe this is all a fool’s errand. Maybe it’s just time to accept it. We don’t have time. Maybe we never did.”   
  
The tears welled up and dug a path deeper than the dark circles cutting beneath Alfred’s eyes. He removed his glasses to wipe at them with his sleeve. “Until my last breath, I will fight it…” Finally the door clicked shut, Alfred on the opposite side, though the rap of his shoes marked his departure.  
  
Matthew waited until the echo was swallowed by silence before rubbing his palm against Francis’s arm with a soft sigh. The heat of his fever was a false indication of life, though his eyelids did flutter into slivers.  
  
“S’my Mathieu?”  
  
Matthew checked his watch and nodded through a fresh tremor of grief as tears glazed his eyes. They tripped into Francis’s arm, but he clenched his teeth against a strangled sob. There was so much he needed to say, but no words to say them—just a scream that he kept bottled up inside, as caustic as acid and slowly eating away at its prison.  
  
“Mon Dieu, you are glowing, Mathieu…” Francis managed a few more words in a garbled, breathy French. He wet his lips.  
  
Matthew glanced at his watch again and nodded slowly. “It’s because it’s time…”  
  
“Time…?” Francis bit against a groan as pain seared up and down his nerves. He felt his body arch from the bed and the restraints dig into already raw skin. He pushed a few more breaths past his lips with a grimace, felt himself sink into sleep, but emerged as if breaking through the surface of water, a few halted gasps clawing for air.   
  
Slowly, Matthew unstrapped the cords across Francis’s body and stilled him with a quiet touch to his chest. “I…I prayed that you could hold on, as I will for the rest of us as we one by one start to fall…” Matthew finally said. “But, you might be the luckiest…in that you are the first to leave this place. I…shall shoulder the burden of being the last.”  
  
“What in heaven’s name…are you talking about?” Francis’s eyes slipped closed and open again. Matthew wavered in and out of view as a heaviness seeped into the holes that the pain had gouged into him.  
  
“Ancient Greece…passed upon me the duty as the Angel of Death,” Matthew whispered. “Before, I thought it a meaningless title, a formality…but now…now I must live up to my duty.”  
  
“So this…really is the end,” Francis managed. A chuckle splintered in his throat. “I guess…I understood it…I just was too afraid to say goodbye. Antonio is…” Finally a tear leaked from the corner of one eye. “He’ll understand why I couldn’t say goodbye…”  
  
Nodding, Matthew patted his hand. “I’ll…say goodbye to him for you,” he said.   
  
“Gilbert and Arthur too…” Francis said.  
  
“Everyone,” Matthew promised. “It’s time to go, Francis. The last of your citizens died a few hours ago. I will take you to a place where there is no pain or suffering, no war or greed. Just a place of peace.”  
  
“Sounds…nice…” Francis said as the last breath eased through parted lips and the heart monitor wailed.

  
Matthew ripped the sensor from Francis’s finger.  
  
_Francis Bonnefoy, Republique Francaise, saw nothing but blinding lights blotting out the grey walls. Before him, Matthew stood with one hand held out. There was no pain or harsh protests of tight muscles when he pushed himself out of bed. There was no longer fire and aching and fever laying savage waste to his body—his people—just a quietness. He took a step forward and took Matthew’s hand and they began to walk._  


End file.
